The roads of summer’s ending

Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

The roads of summer’s ending

I haven’t been posting very much – besides photos I took over the course of the last couple of months and that were stored precisely for times of a dearth of new input, and that one can set to auto-post at certain times – because I’ve been spending the last weeks in libraries mostly, and most of what I’ve been looking at are books and computer screens (either online journals [libraries with access to the MLA or JSTOR or EBSCO or even LEXIS-NEXIS Academic, how do I love thee, let me count the ways … it must be so convenient to be able to simply log into these resources whenever one wants to, I cannot imagine… *sigh*] or my own comptuer keeping a log of what I have read and browsed [dear humanities friends, we really ought to start putting abstracts in front of every article we write, yes?]).

But today was a) Saturday, b) sunny and c) I really needed some fresh air in my face and brain, and so I took some hours off from the research-and-thinking grind (am right back on it now) and so here are some photos from today’s excursion. I think this is it for exciting side-trips – I’ve got to be back in Flensburg by the start of October and there’s so much research and thinking still to be done that I don’t think I’ll get it all done, no matter how hard I try (argh) (thinking takes time). I really really need to figure out a way to access academic journals etc from Flensburg, otherwise I think my career is that much closer to being doomed, simply because not having any/needing to travel places to get it makes the playing field that much more unequal, without anyone taking that factor into account (my collection of library membership cards, let me show you it). And its really frustrating, to boot*. (No, we really don’t have any. Trufax.) (There’s got to be a way, right? [Cue academic despair, since it isn’t like I haven’t been trying to find one for the last five years. Unsuccessfully.]) (Yes yes, whine whine on the highest levels, I know. Still: research, kind of essential for my job.) GRAH.

But ANYWAY, no posting about academic despair, posting of nice forest scenery! Here, have another one:

—
*Don’t get me wrong – its not as if we in FL don’t know the problem exists, or that it is a problem – there simply isn’t enough money to buy access to these databases … and I am really grateful that I DID get to go away for a month and do research, and our library really does all it can.
It’s just … other people have these things at their fingetips *all the time …* – and explaining why you are in someone’s library and would like a library card and that yes, it really is kind of necessary for your work … gets a bit tedious. Also the pitying/condescending air some people get. “We do good work up in the North,” you want to exclaim emphatically, “and that we kind of do it with our hands tied behind our back makes it not worth any less!” (It’s, well, like having a INT -2 stat caused by some artificial obstruction to make up for – it’s not a natural -2 on your stat. So don’t treat it like that, more priviledged library dudes! [Not that one should if it actually were.])

On perception(s)

A few words on …

... points of view, relativity, postmodernity, language, literature, the ineluctable modality of the visible and of everything else … and generally on things that I find fascinating and want to share with the world.
I plan to blog about thought provoking academic articles that I think might be interesting for a wider audience to read than might usually encounter them, and there're also going to be some photographs and (bad) poems, and some links to interesting and cool stuff, and and and, you know … stuff!